I stopped a foot from her and reached out, taking one of her hands in mine. “Do you like this song?” I asked. Obviously she did and obviously I was stupid.“I love this song.”“Me too,” I whispered. I reached for her other hand.“Accidental Babies.”“What?” I tugged her hands gently, and she took a step. I was so close now that the top of her head provided a shelf for my chin, and Damien’s song was being drowned out by the sound of my heart.“It’s another one of his songs. . . and I think I love it even more,” she whispered back.“But that song is so sad,” I breathed, and laid my cheek against her hair.“That’s what makes it beautiful. It’s devastating. I love it when a song devastates me.” Her voice was thready, as if she was struggling to breathe.“Ah, the sweet kind of suffering.” I dropped her hands and wrapped my arms around her.“The best kind.” Her voice hitched as our bodies aligned.“I’ve been suffering for a while now, Millie.”“You have?” she asked, clearly amazed.“Since the moment I saw you. It devastated me. And I love when a girl devastates me.” I was using her definition of the word, but the truth was, my sister was the only girl who had ever devastated me, and it hadn’t been sweet agony.“I’ve never devastated anyone before,” Millie said faintly, shock and pleasure coloring her words. She still stood with her arms at her sides, almost like she couldn’t believe what was happening. But her lips hovered close to my jaw, as if she was enjoying the tension between almost and not quite.“I’m guessing you’ve left a wake of destruction,” I whispered. “You just don’t know.”Finally, as if she couldn’t resist any longer, she raised her hands to my waist.

Trembling fingers and flat palms slid across my abdomen, up my chest, past my shoulders, progressing slowly as if she memorized as she moved. Then she touched my face and her thumbs found the cleft in my chin, the way they’d done the first time she’d traced my smile. Hesitantly, she urged my face down toward hers. A heartbeat before our mouths touched she spoke, and the soft words fluttered against my lips.“Are you going to devastate me, David?” she asked.“God, I hope not,” I prayed aloud.Anticipation dissolved the lingering space between us, and I pressed needy lips to her seeking mouth. And then we melded together, hands clinging, bodies surging, music moaning, dancing in the wreckage. Sweet, sweet, devastation.​“Too late . . .” I thought I heard her whisper.